struggling to make sense of the political process.

Photo by Morgan Jacobs

October 5^th, 1978

Wednesday the kids went and wrapped and tied bundles of newspaper and bags of tin cans.  They sell these to make money for their youth group.  They have a fine youth group at our church.  All the kids are in it, Lisa being the last one.  I have had a lot of worries with her.  She is much improved, thank God.

She is going to Church regular now but not before she gave me a run for my money.  I informed her about two months ago she was starting to Church on a regular basis.  I got her up that Sunday morning and she informed me that she was not going.  Well at first it set me back and then it hit me that I had to take command.  I told her if she didn’t get dressed right then I would knock her across the length of the house.  She stood there and glared at me for what seemed to be three minutes and I held her eyes with mine.  She very slowly backed down and started getting ready for Church.  She then informed me she hoped the church fell in or burned down, and she meant it.  It scared me for her to say that.  Well she stomped into the Church that morning.  I requested special prayer that God would soften her heart.  Well he answered the prayer.  She is much improved.  She is stubborn.

January 22^nd, 1979

Joyce, your last letter said you are understanding.  Yes I believe you are to a certain extent as far as you and I go.  It is true that we should remain as friends.  Now, you are married to my ex-husband and God knows I do not wish you any misfortune in that marriage.  But Joyce, there is one thing we had better get clear now and I’ll only tell you once.  I am the mother of four children whom I love and would walk through fire for.  You and Freddy dealt me some misery this past summer.  Now, maybe you didn’t mean to but the fact remains.  I am careful in my thoughts now.  Freddy does not know his daughter and you certainly do not know her.  Frankly if Lisa were there you could not handle her.  Oh, she would be easy to handle for a while but Lisa is so stubborn that she could really deal you both a lot of trouble.

I know what I am talking about.  I told Lisa last summer when I had all I could take, that if she went to live with her father she could forget she had a mother and I meant it.  You have no conception of the hell she dealt me before I said that to her.  She knew that I meant it.

You are a mother and I am one also, but we are not alike.  I tried to make my marriage work just as you did.  I got dammed tired of trying by myself and had to call it quits.  I would not put up with out of Bill or anyone else what I did the first time.  I have learned that I am extremely strong.  There are limits now that were not there four years ago and to some extent I have hardened.

Joyce, it is a wise notion that we stay on a friendly basis because of the children.  I have never taught the kids against their father and I never will.  But make no mistake they are mine and I will raise them, with God’s grace.  It is wise for you to remember this.

You and I have known each other for a long time and what seems like a lifetime.  I want you to be a devoted wife just as long as Freddy is a devoted husband.  It takes two to pull the lead.  It does now and it always did.  There is only one thing I ask of you as a friend.  Remember my children are mine.

November 30^th, 1979

Photo by Morgan Jacobs

Bill was home last week and he asked on you.  The rig moved to Texas and he can only come home once a week.  But he is going to quit soon and come home.  Drawing un-employment and fishing we can make it and I need him.  His divorce will be final Jan 1^st.  My divorce is proving to be a different matter.  Bobby is in Arizona.  I’ll get it, it just won’t be as simple as we thought.

Your letters sound too cheerful when you write and you must be busy.  You always have things to talk about.  I talk with Dona one day and she was telling me how you were talking about God and how close you have grown to him since you moved away.  How you have changed (for the better).  Tell Roy that we are very proud of him.  Mitch always stop and listen to the letters just to hear something from ya’ll.  He misses you both.

Lots of Love,
Jack, Debbie, and kids

I was reading in the April issue of the New Yorker an article by Ken Auletta about the publishing industry and I was reminded of my great affinity for book stores of old. (You might have seen them in old movies. The ones with the smell of old paper and staff w/o uniform and non-florescence lighting.) The book store was not so much for finding what you already knew you wanted, but a space for finding that desire. Sometimes the store had little note-card reviews by staff along the shelves (seemingly written more by a jr. editor than a low level retail worker) and if not there was someone who was breathlessly excited to suggesting a book for you.

One of the immeasurable joys I find in reading is that intense desire to tell the world about my recently found treasure. And if I can’t often convince my contemporaries that they will actually die if they don’t read Vollmann or Pirsig, watching others provides some relief. Seeing a blatheringly excited book store worker suggest a book seems more like a gift giving ceremony than a sale; and restores to me a belief that socioeconomic interaction can be beautiful.

I don’t know how small bookstores can possibly survive. It may be inevitable that they do not. But I do believe, right down in my marrow, that as this kind of social space leaves, it will take with it a kind of beauty already in short supply.

In the time that is left go and spend some time with the indy booksellers we have left in Phoenix.

*I haven’t included in this map:   chain retailers, comic book stores, religious or spiritually focused book shops or places whose primary business is not books.

** I suspect that B. Dalton Booksellers Bookstar/Town & Country is not really an independent book store, but merely desires to be seen as one. I have no evidence for this except that its (owner verified) Google listing gives its website as www.barnesandnobel.com

I begrudge Jon Stewart for his vacations. Does he know that his weeks off leave me with two equally untenable problems: Either to watch no news and be pretty much completely unaware of the world outside of my normal 10 mile movement radius, or to watch cable news and become way too angry to sleep (which will in turn make me angry and beget a truly nasty self reinforcing cycle of tired cynicism)?!

I bet he’s pleasantly unaware of my dilemma. I hate him for that. But come Monday my sleep deprived resentment combined with restless inquisitive energy (both, since I will inevitably be unable to choose either horn of my dilemma) will cattle-drive me back to Comedy Central, and by then I will have developed a marginally psychopathic mental stew of resentment and desire that is more appropriately reserved for injectable narcotics.

I’m not actually sure that The Daily Show is good in any absolute sense. It’s comedy. It’s cocooned in irony that rhetorically precludes others from leveling the charges of hypocrisy, subjectivity, and lame reporting, from which Jon Stewart makes his living launching. This is deeply unfair. But it’s also right. Because when it comes all the way down to the prima facie burdens of respective shows, The Daily Show promotes itself as a comedy show that may include news. CNN and Fox News and 3TV all, both implicitly and explicitly, promote themselves as news shows which may be entertaining. But both The Daily Show and all the major cable and local news shows are primarily concerned with entertaining you. It’s understandable. Entertaining get viewers which raises add revenue which pay salaries (and investor dividends, but that’s a different issue). But this means that the Daily Show is being honest in a way that a news show cannot be, and that Jon Stewat’s ability to make fun of CNN (for example) in ways that CNN would be (i.e. appear) foolish to respond to in kind, is for good reason.

But I also suspect that Jon Stewart could become a proper newsman, and I would watch and like him still. Maybe not. But probably. There is some of what Stewart does that is serious, and I think, better than 85% of other journalism out there (televised) and about 98% that you can find on COX or Dish Network. I see this most often in interviews. During his finer moments I see a man trying to be rigorously aware of both political (realpolitik) situations and the abstract normative arguments which we pretend underly them.

He is trying to make things sensible and true. And he usually fails. He is a comedian after all. But he seems to be trying. Which is more than any other talking head is offering.

(Caveat: the News Hour is really fine work. But it is undeniably and dreadfully boring)

“Why do we need a Black History Month anyway?” was apparently not the way for my uber-white self to begin an interracial dialogue. Especially not with black professionals at a special BHM opening celebration here at PVCC earlier this month.

As the event was winding down I plopped myself at the front table with the event’s coordinators and speakers. My mind was set for a serious and seriously deep discussion of race relations in the post-millennial U.S. of A. I posed my opening question without segway. The group responded defensively. They were not hostile, but I knew immediately that I had blundered. I had asked exactly the question I wanted answered, but it became clear to me that my question communicated more and other meanings than I had planned.

Interracial dialogue by Dalibor Levíček

I had unintentionally connoted that BHM was unjustified. My question also conspicuously lacked assurances: that I was not racist, that my sympathies lay with them. I didn’t soften the question with academic language. But I also didn’t give explicit reason to believe that I wanted to challenge or that I thought BHM unneeded. I erroneously assumed my question would be taken literally and directly, one from an inquisitive mind without prejudice.

I was naïvely insensitive. If prompted, I would have told you that my being a white guy and asking this question at a BHM celebration would change the reception of my words. To communicate effectively I needed to take this all into account. I understand this is my responsibility. But I also just want to speak; plainly and honestly and directly.

I’m keenly aware that I could be overwhelmed by considering how everything I say could be interpreted. This variables-have-variables type convolution looms. It threatens me with what I imagine stage-fright feels like. I must guard against this. I must be able to speak.

And I recoil at the idea of becoming so obsessed with how my words come across that I become less obsessed with what they mean. Putting vanity before honesty has a requiem’s ring. On another hand, I am responsible for what I say and its interpretation. Difficulty does not absolve me of responsibility.

And so it’s a dilemma — misinterpretation or paralysis. It’s unpleasant. Being stereotyped as the ignorant white guy isn’t fun. (Which is maybe not the worst realization to have.) The assumption of racism is offensive. But thinking about every context of my every utterance exposes my mind to a wicked chill.

To be honest I don’t know a solution. I don’t know what to do. I dont know the (or even an) answer.

Maybe it’s best just to struggle– to shoot for both sincerity and sensitivity. If I always miss the mark, I can try to miss by less.

Later on as people packed up the party, I spoke to the reverend I had offended with my question. “I think you got the wrong impression earlier,” I said. “I really more just wanted to know, kindof how you felt about the month. You know, what it does, what purpose it serves for you and what you get out of it.”

“Well you should have just said that,” she said.